


nothing but the truth

by KittenAnarchy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Good Sibling Allison Hargreeves, Good Sibling Diego Hargreeves, Good Sibling Klaus Hargreeves, Good Sibling Luther Hargreeves, Good Sibling Vanya Hargreeves, I love them so much, NUMBER FIVE GETS A HUG BABY, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Post-Season/Series 02, because of reginald's bitchass, dw theyll talk properly in chapter 2 when five's not drugged off his ass, even tho theyre not medically accurate, it's a truth serum fic everyone, slight emetophobia tw, underage drugging kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenAnarchy/pseuds/KittenAnarchy
Summary: His body is burning hot, shaking in the way it would in the early days. He doesn’t know where he is, everything blurring together as black spots dance in his vision. The tight feeling in his chest is a leaky and dripping thing, filling up his lungs and crawling up his throat, and Five just wants itout.Distantly, he can hear a lock click.“Five? Five!” Two strong hands wrap around his shoulders, a blurred face breaking through his haze of panic. Five blinks and the image focuses - it’s Diego, hauling him up by his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”He bursts.(Following their collective un-adoption, Five gets injected with a truth serum, has a bit of a breakdown, and finally gets a hug. Post S2 - S.A. exists.)
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 17
Kudos: 421





	nothing but the truth

**Author's Note:**

> i am a SLUT for these kinds of fics, and there's none in the TUA fandom so you know what they say:  
> if you want to hurt five, grab a bat and get in line.

They all practically collapse into a motel, bruised and bloody but alive. They no longer have a home, their lives are in shambles, but at the very least, he and his siblings aren’t dead. Five has learned to take what he can get. Allison rumors them two connecting rooms with ease, and they all file in.

Five plops himself down on a ratty wooden armchair tucker in the far corner. It’s got a good view of the rest of the room, and it’s close to a window. His side twinges at the thought of having to sleep upright on the uncomfortable and splintered insult to furniture, but it’s a small price to pay for safety.

“Is everyone okay?” Luther asks, collapsing onto one of the queen-sized beds. With the way it groans, Five is surprised it hasn’t collapsed under his weight already. Diego falls into the other one next to him, gripping his gut. “Diego?”

“I’m fine. It’s just the fucking stab wound Dad gave me acting up.” Diego mutters, face pinched.

“Join the club,” Five mutters. Amidst the chaos that was fighting the Sparrow Academy completely unprepared, the man had managed to stab him with a needle. Five had managed to shake it off before all of it was emptied into his body, but the fact that he doesn’t know what it’s going to do to him is… unsettling.

It’ll be fine. Five can handle whatever side-effects it throws at him by himself.

“ _You_ join the club,” Diego snaps back, bringing him back to the present. “Dad stabbed me first!” He pauses, brows furrowing. “Wait, when did you get stabbed by Dad?”

“Does it matter? It’s Dad.” Diego stares at him, pushing himself up on an elbow.

“Five—“

“Do we even still call ‘Dad’ now? I mean, he pretty much un-adopted us.” Klaus wonders out loud, stretching out next to Diego with his legs crossed. “Don’t even get me started on Emo-Ben.”

“‘Emo-Ben’?” Allison quirks an eyebrow, placing a first aid kit on the coffee table in the middle of the room. She tosses Diego a bottle of aspirin. Five makes a mental note to sneak some pills from it later.

“Yeah, ‘cause of his awful bangs. Where’d you get that?”

“Asked the motel owner while I was getting this room. It’s not great, I know”

“Should I get some food?” Vanya asks, wiping the sweat from her pale face. Fighting against the Sparrow Academy’s attempts to capture them had taken a lot out of her.

“No offense, Van, but you look like you’re gonna pass out,” Klaus says. “So does Five, honestly.” Five jerks slightly at the mention, instinctively gripping the briefcase tighter.

He doesn’t want to deal with their worry right now. (‘ _Where was it when the world was about to be destroyed?’_ A quiet, bitter part of him hisses.)

“Actually,” Allison says, glancing between him and Vanya with her stupid mothering eyes. “I think I saw a small shop downstairs. Does anyone want anything?”

“I want chips! And a bottle of nail polish, thank you.”

“I can come help, if you want,” Five can practically see Luther’s tail wagging as he sits up to look at Allison hopefully. He’d laugh if his chest didn’t hurt so much.

“Some notebooks and pens would be nice,” Five mutters, absentmindedly rubbing at his neck. The injection point is starting to itch, and he digs his grimy nails in further, practically clawing at it in a vain attempt to get the sensation to stop. There’s a tight knot in his chest like he’s gotten heartburn, and he can’t seem to breathe. “I’m taking a shower.” He says, abruptly standing up and brushing past his siblings towards the dingy motel bathroom.

As soon as the lock clicks, Five throws up.

* * *

Five practically tears the shower curtains off of the rod when Klaus busts down the bathroom door, clothes in hand. “Oh, Five-y!” He chirps, setting them down on the cracked toilet seat. “I come bearing gifts!” They must have gone out for new clothes - Klaus has shed his 60s get up for a loose black skirt and some band t-shirt.

“The door was _locked_ ,” He hisses. “Do you even know what the word ‘knock’ means?”

Klaus laughs, turning to look at him. “Of course I do, Fi— _ive, Christ on a cracker!_ ” His mouth drops open. _It’s the bruises_ , Five realizes belatedly and clutches the curtain tighter to his chest. “What happened?”

He bats away the hand that’s reaching to grab the shower curtain. “Unlike the rest of you, I haven’t exactly had the luxury of sitting around and playing house.” Between two apocalypses, there wasn’t any time to worry about old wounds and a couple of bruises. Besides, Five’s gotten used to the dull aches of pain. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter anymore. Get out.”

Klaus stares at him. “Uh, I think it matters _a lot_? You look like someone used you as a punching bag. You need help, Five.”

_You need help, Five._

_Now_ they want to help? Not when the entire world is on the line?

His thin, fraying line of patience snaps.

“Get _out_ , Klaus!” He snaps, throwing a bar of soap at the younger man. Klaus flees at that moment, leaving the bar of soap to hit the door and fall onto the dirty floor.

Great.

Five turns off the shower.

The clothes Klaus brought are clearly for adults much bigger than this stupid body’s skinny frame - the shirt comes down to his knees, and the leggings are baggy around his legs, only held up by the elastic waistband. He looks even stupider pulling the academy shorts over them, the only piece of his uniform that doesn’t smell or feel like something died in them.

It’s comfortable.

Fuck.

Klaus immediately zeroes in on him as soon as he leaves the bathroom, pushing a plastic cup of cheap microwave noodles into his hands. The synthetic chicken smell makes his stomach flip. “Five! I think we should probably talk about what happened.” He claps, looking at Five expectantly. This, unfortunately, attracts the attention of the rest of his brain-dead siblings who can’t seem to get the memo that he wants to be left alone. Five can practically feel the weight of their concerned gazes on him.

“You look like shit, Five.” Diego comments between bites. “What’d you want to talk about anyway, Klaus?”

“It’s about-”

“-nothing.” Five cuts in with a sharp glare. “It’s about nothing. Klaus just needs to mind his own damn business.”

“Five,” Vanya says reproachfully.

“I’m not apologizing,” He says shortly, ignoring the feeling of bile burning the back of his throat. Five doesn’t bother jumping to the armchair - he’s too tired, having burnt up all his energy to stop the apocalypse two times over, and now he has to burn whatever scraps he can find to figure out a way to get them out of this mess. He places the cup noodles onto the floor, grabs the cheap notebook and pen lying on the chair, and tries to start on his equations.

The keyword being _tries_.

“Aren’t you going to eat, Five?” Luther asks.

“Not hungry.” He bites out. Allison raises an eyebrow.

“Have you been eating?” She asks, pointing a fork at him. “I think all I’ve seen you drink is coffee.”

“He had a pot of coffee when we went to a diner back in Dallas.” Vanya offers up. He shoots her a glare. She doesn’t flinch, staring back cooly.

Huh. Look who grew a backbone. Five would be proud of her if her newfound confidence wasn’t getting in his way.

“I ate other things too.” His headache is getting worse. Maybe he’ll just take some aspirin now.

“Just eat your food, bro.”

“And I said I wasn’t hungry,” Five snaps, slamming the notebook down onto his lap. “I’m fifty-eight _fucking_ years old, Diego. If I wanted a bunch of children half my age to baby me, I would have gone to a fucking daycare.”

Before anyone can say anything - though he can see Diego gearing up for a fight - Five grabs his things and jumps. He ignores the way he stumbles, the way his throat burns, or the way the itching spreads. He doesn’t have time for this. Right now, he needs to work.

There’s probably a closet or something around here that he can work in.

* * *

It was hot in the apocalypse.

In the first few days, when the bodies were still fresh and unburied and there was smoke and fire everywhere, the temperature never dropped. Even at night, the sweltering heat never eased up, keeping him in a choke hold. It was even hotter where the bodies of his siblings were. Dolores had told him not to sleep at their half-built graves.

_It’s too warm, Five. You’ll burn up._ She had been kind and gentle about it. It was more than he deserved. _You can come back, but you can’t stay._

Five stopped listening to her and continued building.

He got heatstroke two days later.

In his dehydrated, fevered state, he clung to the sun-warmed bodies of his siblings, convinced that they were still alive. His heat-induced hallucinations would talk to him, begging him to help them. If it hadn’t been for a weak thunderstorm passing overhead, Five would have died there with his siblings, lying in a half-dried puddle of his own sick and piss.

He’s reminded of those times now.

His body is burning hot, shaking in the way it would in the early days. He doesn’t know where he is, everything blurring together as black spots dance in his vision. The tight feeling in his chest is a leaky and dripping thing, filling up his lungs and crawling up his throat, and Five just wants it _out_.

Distantly, he can hear a lock click.

“Five? Five!” Two strong hands wrap around his shoulders, a blurred face breaking through his haze of panic. Five blinks and the image focuses - it’s Diego, hauling him up by his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

He bursts.

“Everything’s _wrong_ , I don’t know, I never know, it just hurts _so much_ ,” The words leave his mouth unbidden, every secret he has ready to spill out into the open at a moment’s notice. “It always hurts, but I guess watching your family die, it’s- it’s always painful, and you look so much nicer alive-”

“Five? Klaus, w-why is he acting like this?”

“Klaus is there too? I never gave him his twenty bucks. I never came back for you either, I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to leave you, I _swear_ , I love you all _so much_ , I-” The world moves, colors blurring together. Next thing Five knows, he is being laid out on something soft.

When it refocuses, Five is staring at the worried faces of his siblings. “I don’t know why you care so much,” His mouth is still moving, and if he were a bit more coherent, he would have been mortified at what was coming out. “I left and even though I tried to get back, I never got back in time, I never get back in time, something always happens-”

"What's wrong with him?"

"Why are you asking me? I just found him like this-"

"Well, maybe if _someone_ went after him-" 

“Did he finally lose it?”

“Maybe I did.” He can feel the prickle of their gazes as they focus on him. He knows what's about to come out of his mouth. _Don’t say it_. “I spent so long in the apocalypse, I’m-” _Don’t_ say _it!_ “-sure I went insane, I, I thought-” _DON’T. SAY. IT._ “-about killing myself sometimes, but I didn’t try, _I didn’t_ , I _swear_ , Dolores would-” Something jams itself between his teeth. The taste of wet metal and vomit fills his mouth, and Five only realizes that it’s his forearm when the sharp sting of pain sets in.

His neck itches.

“Hey,” Klaus laughs, voice pitching high with hysteria. “What the _fuck_?” All of his siblings are staring at him, a little shell-shocked at the sudden confession.

“Ish the needul,” He blurts out, desperate to take the attention off _that_ confession, half-muffled by his forearm. “Dad, he got’h me wiff ah needul.” The heat has died down some, after blurting out so much, but it’s still there.

“I’m sorry, Dad got you with a _what_?” Much to his chagrin, Diego pries his bloody arm from his teeth. Vanya passes him a roll of bandages. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything? Why can’t you let us _help_ you instead of going off on your own all the time, Five!?”

“Because-” it was only a little, I could handle it, I’m not a kid “-I don’t want you to _die_ again. I don’t want to see you die again. I’m always the last one left, and I’m going to be the last one left because I’m stuck in this _stupid_ thirteen-year-old body, it’s why I hate it so much, though the patronization obviously doesn’t help much since I’m supposed to be 58, but all my wrinkles and white hair and sunspots are _gone_ , and if they’re gone, was I ever really in the apocalypse at all? If a tree falls in the forest with no one around, does it still happen? Sometimes I wish-”

Fuck it. Five might as well put it all out on the table. He’s in no shape to teleport out, and his mouth isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon.

“I wish the bullet holes stayed when I rewound time, because these bruises hurt and maybe I’m the problem, and you were all so _happy_ in the 1960s-”

A soft, calloused hand covers his mouth. “This is an invasion of privacy,” Vanya says quietly. Five can’t see their faces - doesn’t _want_ to see their faces - but the silence says everything.

“H-He said he was hurt,” Diego says, bandages still in hand. “We need to... can you take off his shirt? He’s probably got something hidden under there.”

“Five, do you want me to move my hand?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” He blurts out the minute Vanya moves her hand slightly to start taking off his shirt and check his injuries. “I don’t understand, I’ve done so many bad things, I ran away and left you to get beaten by Dad, I stranded us in the 1960s, I’ve killed so many people, I killed _the board of directors_ , and it didn’t even get us home in the end because I was so fucking _stupid_ to think the Handler wouldn’t go back on her deal, she always _does!_ I _know_ this-” His shirt is tugged over his head, effectively muting him.

Five resists the urge to cover himself as his bare chest is exposed. The audible gasps of his siblings don’t help whatsoever.

“Five,” Diego takes mercy on him, opening up the first aid kit Allison handed him. “There’s a lot to unpack here, and I know I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on with you, but here’s what’s going to happen.”

“I-”

“Vanya,” Her hand clamps down on his mouth. “We’re not going to force you to say anything else. This is- This isn’t something- what you’ve said. I’m sure there are things you really didn’t want to tell us. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we won’t address, but not when you’re like this.” Diego’s fingers run through his hair soothingly.

“But _why_?” Five nearly sobs around Vanya’s palm, and maybe he is sobbing at this point. Everything feels far away and painful at this point, but he fights through it to focus on Diego.

“Because we _love_ you, dumbass,” Diego lightly raps his knuckles on Five’s sweaty forehead. “You’re still apart of this family. Sure you’ve missed out on some stuff, but so have we. It’s a two-way street.”

“We’re here for you,” Vanya hums, Allison sitting down next to her with a smile on her face and a glass of water in hand.

“Yup. Time to shut the fuck up, Five-y.” Klaus grins at him. Luther, who had been standing a little ways away, comes over to wipe at his sweat and tears with a napkin.

“Is it okay if I give you a hug?” He sounds a little teary himself. Five doesn’t trust his mouth not to run away from him, and he nods. At this point, he’s too emotionally and physically exhausted to keep up any pretenses.

Everyone crowds on the shitty motel bed that’s way too small to support the weight of six people to join in on the hug, but Five finds that he can’t seem to care.

He clings to the first hug he’s gotten in forty-five years and doesn’t let go.


End file.
